Not the A to Z of Radio Comedy: M is for Marks in his Diary

Marks in his Diary was a star vehicle for Alfred Marks, one of the old school of British comedy actors who'd come up through the Armed Services/Windmill Theatre route. The set-up was that Marks would be reading through the events of the week from his dairy which would lead to various comedy sketches and comic songs.  Supporting him in the first series were David Jason (still very much a regular radio voice on Week Ending, The Impressionists and The Jason Explanation), Miriam Margoyles and doctor turned comedian Rob Buckman.

Alfred Marks was 'discovered' as a radio star in 1946 in the series Beginners Please and got his first regular radio gig alongside Peter Sellers and Benny Hill in Starlight Hour. He continued to appear in Starlight Hour in the early 1950s as well as the usual guest spots on Music Hall, Worker's Playtime, Variety Bandbox and Show Band Show. He got joint star billing with singer Anne Shelton in Double Top, with comedy lines supplied by Sid Colin.

Diaries featured in the early 50s Home Service show Home at Eight which included a feature called Mrs Doom's Diary, a spoof on the hugely popular Mrs Dales' Diary, in which Hermoine Gingold was Mrs Doom and Alfred Marks her doom-laden husband Edmond. In the first series their son was played by one Richard Attenborough.

Work in the theatre, films and tv followed and when ITV started Alfred became one of its earliest faces thanks to the series Alfred Marks Times (1956-61). He was back on the radio in the late 60s/early 70s as an occasional panellist on Does the Team Think? and in 1972 Frank Muir chose him to read out some of the comedy lines and poems for the anthology series Frank Muir Goes Into... This ran at intervals until 1991.           

Scripts for Marks in his Diary were supplied by relative newcomers including Laurie Rowley (The News Huddlines) and Terry Ravenscroft (who'd been writing for Ken Dodd and Les Dawson) joined by some rising Oxbridge stars Jimmy Mulville, Rory McGrath and Clive Anderson. The series producer is Griff Rhys Jones, already with two years of radio LE experience under his belt mainly on Week Ending.       

The music was by David Firman, at the time already providing the musical support on Week Ending. and perhaps best known. certainly on the telly, for his work with Victoria Wood   

A further two series of Marks in his Diary followed in 1980 for which Miriam was replaced by Judy Carne (the ex-Laugh-In  actress who'd recently returned to the UK) and Rob Buckman by Hugh Thomas. For the final series in 1981 Miriam was back with support from Hugh and now Fred Harris or Chris Emmett. Taking over as producer was Jonathan James-Moore.      

Here's the first edition of Marks in his Diary as it was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on the afternoon of 1 July 1979.

From a couple of weeks later the third edition as heard on 15 July 1979. To my knowledge, other than the in-week repeats, neither of these programmes have been heard since.

 

Series 1: 1 July 1979 - 19 August 1979 (8 episodes)

Series 2: 16 March 1980 - 1 June 1980 (12 episodes)

Series 3: 15 November 1981 - 3 January 1982 (8 episodes)

Why Vote? It Only Encourages Them

Whether you're voting for "strong and stable government" or "for the many, not the few" (other political parties are available) the thankfully short 2017 general election campaign culminates in polling this Thursday. The British public, perhaps weary of all the major votes over the last couple of years, may well resort to that old adage, why vote? it only encourages them - a saying whose originator is defined as 'anonymous', though the internet seems to think, erroneously, that it's Billy Connelly.

Thirty-eight years ago last month the UK voted in its first female Prime Minister. "A new satirical dawn is breaking" remarked wit and satirist Alan Coren. On the cusp of that seismic change in politics, just before, and immediately after, the close of polls on 3 May 1979 BBC Radio 4 broadcast this admittedly rather shambolic live comedy show to mark the change of guard from Sunny Jim (cue impression from Chris Emmett) to the Iron Lady (wheel on Janet Brown).

Why Vote? It Only Encourages Them was a combination of The News Huddlines and The News Quiz. From Huddlines comes the master of ceremonies for the whole show, Roy Hudd, together with the aforementioned Chris Emmett and Janet Brown. From The News Quiz are the regular team captains Alan Coren and Richard Ingrams joined by Willie Rushton and Peter Cook. David Jason, at the time a regular voice on Week Ending, also pops up. There are some bizarre, though nonetheless funny, interludes in which Brian Johnston and Bill Frindall describe what's going on the BBC1 TV coverage, a joke that works better in the studio.

The programme was broadcast live - and the gaps do sometimes show, ably covered-up by Hudd - from 9.35 pm, just before the close of polls, until 10.00 pm. Brain Redhead then appears for ten minutes in discuss the predictions on the final outcome, though this has been edited out on this recording. The comedy resumes again at 10.10 pm for half-an-hour with the comedians now off the leash a little more, as the ballot boxes have now been sealed. (Topical comedy shows had to tread a little more carefully during the election period, more so than it does now. Week Ending was pulled from the schedules as soon as the election was called).

To my knowledge Why Vote? It Only Encourages Them has never been repeated, not surprising given its topical nature. I'm grateful to David Mann who kindly supplied this recording.

Of course, I would encourage you all to vote this coming Thursday. 

That Was the Week - Part 4

How well do you remember the news events of 1982? September 1982 in particular? Yes Thatcher was in power. Yes there'd been the Falklands War earlier that year. But beyond that...

On a personal note I was just about to start the third and final year of my degree so was no doubt getting ready to knuckle down to some hard studying!! But not too busy to commit these three classic long-running topical comedy shows to tape. Yes, this is a rare opportunity to listen to The News Huddlines, The News Quiz and Week Ending all from the same week in 1982.

Firstly a typically lively Thursday night edition of The News Huddlines from 23 September. With Roy Hudd is Chris Emmett and Alison Steadman. There'll be more about The News Huddlines next month.  Amazingly even six years after resigning as PM, the team still wring some humour out of Harold Wilson, but then Chris did a great Wilson voice. A highlight is Alison's reading of Di's Diary.

Next up is Week Ending from Friday 24 September with David Jason, David Tate, Nicky Henson and Tracy Ullman.  Subjects for comedy include the TUC day of action, the Middle East, unemployment and a certain Royal Wedding.  There's that old standby of comic observations in the David Attenborough style.  In all honesty there's little here that raises a smile, not sure if it's the passage of time or that this is a duff edition. 

Finally the Saturday lunchtime edition of The News Quiz. In the chair is Barry Took. Taking part are Russell Davies, Hunter Davies,  Sue Cook and, here amply demonstrating  the comedy value that he imbued, Alan Coren.  Reading the headlines, complete with accents, is Peter Donaldson.  Note that the panel totally fail to answer what Took acknowledges as a "difficult question".  

Anyone checking the BBC Genome listing for this edition of The News Quiz will spot that Stan McMurtry was billed to appear rather than Hunter Davies. I've submitted this information to the Genome team. 

That Was the Week – Part 2

The comedy factory that was Week Ending proved to be one of the most enduring programmes in Radio 4’s history and helped launch the careers of hundreds of comedy writers. It first aired forty-five years ago today.    

The roll-call of scriptwriters who ventured into the famous writers’ room is formidable and includes Pete Spence, Guy Jenkin, Andy Hamilton, Colin Bostock-Smith, Ian Brown, Richard Quick, Alistair Beaton, John Langdon, James Hendrie, Barry Pilton, Simon Bullivant, David Renwick, Steve Punt, Ian Pattinson, John O’ Farrell, Simon Brett, Rob Newman, David Baddiel, Richard Herring and Stewart Lee to name but twenty!

But how did it all start? BBC television had ridden the wave of topical satirical comedy in the early 60s but by the end of the decade had gone cold on the idea. BBC radio’s Listen to this Space had enjoyed a successful four series run but its star Nicholas Parsons was now controlling proceedings on Just a Minute.

Meanwhile Radio 4 controller Tony Whitby was having to reshape his schedules to accommodate the re-alignment of the station’s output in accordance with the Broadcasting in the Seventies policy and he let it be known that he wanted a ‘light’ Saturday night show. Comedy producer David Hatch came up with the proposal for a review of the previous seven days “featuring comic sketches performed by a band of actors, punctuated with quick-fire gags and devoid of a studio audience”. The programme’s title was What You Missed.

Hatch, working alongside co-producer Simon Brett, pulled together a show that featured members of the BBC’s Drama Rep (1) and a young comedy writer called Peter Spence who’d previously written for Les Dawson, Crackerjack and the Quiz of the Week. Tony Whitby was also drafting in some TV names to front some of his new shows – Richard Baker on Start the Week and Robert Robinson on Stop the Week – so Nationwide’s Michael Barrett was picked to host What You Missed.

By the time the pilot was recorded on 23 January 1970 the programme had been re-titled Week Ending. (2) From the start some of Week Ending’s now familiar elements were in place: the short news gags that would later develop into the pithy ‘newslines’ and the look at next week’s news. (3)

The pilot was a success and the series got the full go-ahead, kicking off at 23.05 on Saturday 4 April 1970. That first show, of which no recordings exist (4), also introduced another element to the format, the Week Ending theme tune known as Smokey Joe, a piece of library music that would bookend the show for the next twelve years.

Although Tony Whitby had foist Michael Barrett onto the producers he wasn’t that happy with his performance, but then neither was Barrett who felt out of place: “I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to do it deadpan and straight or whether I was supposed to turn myself into a comic.”  As it happened the production team got the opportunity for a re-think when a General Election was called in May and the programme pulled from the schedules – a fate it would endure until 1987 when it did continue throughout the election campaign.  

Week Ending returned to the airwaves in June 1970 initially with Graeme Garden acting as host. But by 1971 the programme was now talking on its familiar sound and feel with less reliance on the Drama Rep and with David Jason, Bill Wallis and later that year Nigel Rees taking on the multitude of gags, sketches and impersonations. The reliance on actors was very much Week Ending’s modus operandi, in contrast to today’s topical comedy shows.

David Jason has found fame in the 1960s on ITV’s Do Not Adjust You Set but his radio work, mainly in the 1970s, is overlooked. He was a superb mimic and as well as his Week Ending work – he stayed with the show until 1983 – he was a regular on TheImpressionists and starred in four series of The Jason Explanation alongside Sheila Steafel and Jon Glover.

Bill Wallis had come up through the Footlights route – together with Robin Ray and Joe Melia he’d been in the substitute cast of Beyond the Fringe when the original cast toured the States – and had appeared in several TV productions in the 1960s. (5) Bill would be the longest-serving of the Week Ending cast, appearing until 1992, though by then he was doing fewer and fewer shows. “I did become very grumpy” he admitted. He was known for railing against some of the more outré sketch ideas. In October 1990 the programme supposedly took the form of a magazine and a Peter Baynham-penned script called for Wallis to play the staples in the centrefold. “I don’t do staples, I do Gorbachev!” he bellowed off-mic.

Nigel Rees’s appointment was a little more unusual. At the time he was more familiar to radio listeners as a reporter on Today, The World at One and Movie-Go-Round and he’d previously worked at Granada and ITN. But from his days at Oxford, and more particularly, performing in various Oxford revues he’d met Simon Brett and it was he who invited Nigel to join Week Ending, where he remained until 1976 – just in time for The Burkiss Way and devise Quote … Unquote.

For most of the 1970s and 1980s Week Ending retained a core cast of four. Joining in 1976 was David Tate, another stalwart he remained with the show until 1993. A year later saw the recruitment of the first regular female member, Sheila Steafel, who stayed until 1982. This meant, at the very least, that Nigel Rees or David Tate no longer had to ‘do’ the Queen or Margaret Thatcher.  When Sheila left she was replaced by Tracey Ullman. (6) But in 1983 Sally Grace joined the programme, intitally for just two weeks whilst Ullman was in America, but she remained a fixture until the final edition some fifteen years later.

From that period here’s the tenth anniversary show from 4 April 1980. The cast are David Jason, Bill Wallis, David Tate and Sheila Steafel. It starts off with a rather different version of the sig tune.

From a couple of years later this edition aired on 30 April 1982 just a few weeks into the Falklands War. Performing on this occasion are David Tate, Chris Emmett, Sheila Steafel and Jon Glover. My recording comes from the Saturday repeat as, for some reason, two sketches were cut from the original transmission. 
 

There was considerable cross-over with Radio 2’s topical comedy show The News Huddlines (more of which in a future post) amongst the writers but the man providing the impressions on Huddlines, Chris Emmett, also had a 20-year association with Week Ending.  There was also some cross-over with ITV’s Spitting Image. Chris worked on some episodes as did other Week Ending voices Jon Glover (1980-98) and Alistair McGowan (1989-93).  By the 1990s there were usually three regulars plus one ‘other’, too numerous to list here. The ‘regulars’ though included Toby Longworth (1993-96), Jeffrey Holland (1993-96), Dave Lamb (1994-98) and Sarah Parkinson (1997-98).

With a voracious appetite for topical sketches and one-liners Week Ending employed an open door policy for writers, the first programme to do so. By 1977 there was a Writers’ Room at 16 Langham Street where every Wednesday budding comedy writers could pitch their ideas alongside the small number of commissioned writers. Added to this absolutely anyone could send in their newslines and experience the thrill of hearing their joke make it to air and their name added to the ever lengthening end credits.  

As well as providing a training ground for comedy writers Week Ending also saw its fair share of producers, 49 in all during its full run. Many went on to become recognised names in radio and TV comedy: Paul Mayhew-Archer, Paul Spence, Griff Rhys-Jones, Geoffrey Perkins, Jimmy Mulville, John Lloyd, Bill Dare, Jan Ravens, Harry Thompson, David Tyler, Sarah Smith, Armando Iannucci and so on.

In later years there was something a revolving door policy on producers, much to the ire of the regular performers. Whilst in part this was radio policy to let producers learn the ropes it also reflected the need for the show to remain fresh and also to encourage the use of new talent on air too. Sally Grace recalled that “there was one week when I had three people with L-plates on. They were friends of the producer, who fancied having a go. One was a dentist. Another actually said, ‘Do I speak when the green light some on?’” (7)

To celebrate the programme’s twentieth anniversary producer Jon Magnusson and scriptwriter Bill Matthews compiled the two-part documentary for Radio 4 titled Two Decades of Weekending (sic). Providing the links was Sir David Steel, who had himself been the butt of several jokes on the series, especially during the SDP-Liberal alliance period with David Owen. Part one was first heard on 31 August 1990.   

For such a long-running show Week Ending rarely courted controversy but it hit the headlines in 1980 when it lampooned the tabloid newspaper editor Derek Jameson in a Man of the Week skit written by John Langdon. Describing him as “the archetypal East End by made bad”, “a nitty-gritty titivation tout” and a man “who is to journalism what lockjaw is to conversation and who still believes that erudite is a glue.” Jameson sued the BBC for libel. When it came to court four years later the jury found the sketch innocent fun and fair comment and so he lost the case and ended up paying £75,000 in legal costs.  Jameson never got over that “character assassination” as he recalls in the second part of Two Decades of Weekending first broadcast on 7 September 1990.  (8)

Over the years Week Ending itself was subject to parody, some good humoured mickey-taking and some with a bit more edge. Here are four examples. The first from a 1980 episode of The Burkiss Way has fun with Week Ending’s by now familiar recital of writers in the end credits. Both Andrew Marshall and David Renwick wrote for Week Ending and, of course, Chris Emmett who reads out the names (most of which are genuine) worked on both. Plus there’s Jo Kendall apologising for the “somewhat unwarranted outburst. In future, the closing credits on Week Ending will be kept considerably shorter … by reading out the names of the people who listen to it”.  

The second clip is also from a 1980, an episode of Injury Time, one of the programmes that occupied Week Ending’s time slot whilst it took a summer break. You’ll detect that the writer, probably Rory McGrath, may not have been entirely happy with his Week Ending experience. As well as another go at the end credits there are digs at the programme’s well established sketch formula: the Father and Son routine in which the offspring ask increasingly precocious and complicated questions on a news story and the A&B where the listener eavesdrops on two men in a pub (originally Jason and Wallis) picking apart a story and usually ending with the catchphrase “Well, this is it”. Appearing here with McGrath are Jimmy Mulville, Martin Bergman and Robert Bathurst. (9)

The third clip is from a more affectionate look at the programme, and indeed the whole of the network, A Day in the Life of Radio 4. The cast were all Week Ending alumni: Russell Davies (who provided this script), Chris Emmett, Sally Grace and Sheila Steafel. It was broadcast on 3 September 1983, though my recording was made of the 29 December repeat.

And finally Chris Morris couldn’t resist having a pop at the programme in a 1991 episode of On the Hour. In practice the Thank God It’s Satire Day sketch was more than likely written by Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, again former Week Ending contributors. The nonsensical closing credits are written and performed by Morris. 

Regular listeners to Week Ending will remember the theme tunes, Smokey Joe and that classic piece of 80s pop Party Fears Two, both of which feature in the recordings I’ve posted. But there were, in fact, four themes during the programme’s run.

Smokey Joe played by Small-Group Jazz used between April 1970 and April 1982
Party Fears Two by the Associates used between May 1982 and July 1993 
Week Ending Signature Tune specially composed by Richard Attree with a newsy feel to it. Used from September 1993 to July 1997
Week Ending Signature Tune composed by Richie Webb and Matt Katz with a more funky news style used from October 1997 to April 1998

Sunday Times 24 September 1989

Somewhat unusually Week Ending also made brief appearances over on Radio 2, popping up on some celebratory comedy/light entertainment shows. Here are a couple of examples. First David Jason, David Tate, Sheila Steafel and Bill Wallis join Roy Hudd on The Light Entertainment Show from October 1982. The second clip comes from a live programme hosted by David Frost in September 1988 to mark 21 years of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4, The Radio Show, Radio Show. Appearing here are Sally Grace, David Tate and Jon Glover.

By the early 1990s the series was beginning to struggle and there were threats that the plug would be pulled. The high turnover of producers didn’t help and cast veterans Bill Wallis and David Tate had moved on. In 1993 Gareth Edwards was brought in as Executive Producer and the show got something of a re-launch. Edwards tackled the issue of a vast number of writers on small commissions that had led to a lack of commitment and direction in the Writers’ Room. The regular cast members were now Sally Grace, the recognised star of the show, with Jeffrey Holland (Hi-de-Hi’s Spike Dixon) and Toby Longworth.

New network controllers inevitably mean schedule changes and the incoming James Boyle (arriving in late 1996) would cut a swathe through Radio 4’s programmes. By July 1997 Week Ending was already earmarked as being for the chop and the obituaries were written before the last series started in the October. A number of established programmes were dropped and others re-timed. The supposed replacement for Week Ending was the Sunday night show The Beaton Generation in which “Alistair Beaton hosts a satirical comedy discussion programme”. It ran for 12 weeks. (10)

The final edition, Week Ending Ending, aired on 3 April 1998 with the Saturday repeat going out exactly 28 years after the first broadcast.  Here’s that final show complete with a re-appearance of David Hatch and a production credit for Jonathan James-Moore, by then Head of Radio Light Entertainment.

And that is the end of next week’s news. In the next post in this series I recall The News Huddlines.

Week Ending

1132 episodes broadcast over 83 series between 4 April 1970 and 3 April 1998.
Plus 147 specials such as Year Ending and compilation shows for the BBC World Service broadcast either annually or monthly under the Two Cheers for … banner.

Additional reading:

Prime Minister, You Wanted to See Me-A History of Week Ending by Ian Graves & Justin Lewis (Kaleidoscope Publishing 2008)

With thanks to Charles Rooke.

Notes:
1:  Sean Arnold, Geoffrey Collins, Garard Green and Frederick Treves all featured in the pilot episode.
2: The World at One presenter William Hardcastle also appeared in the first episode.
3: This feature, always prefaced “And Now Here is Next’s Week’s News” was eventually dropped in 1991.
4: For the first ten years only 25 complete episodes exist in the BBC Sound Archives.
5: Spot him in a couple of episodes of The Avengers.
6: Alison Steadman also appeared during 1983, yet another News Huddlines crossover.
7: I’ve not been able to establish who Sally is referring to here.
8: The BBC made it up to Derek Jameson by employing him on Radio 2’s Breakfast Show a couple of years after the court case.
9: Injury Time also featured Emma Thompson in the cast though she’s not heard in this clip.
10: Radio 4 listeners didn’t have to wait too long for a topical comedy show as The Now Show launched in October 1998.

The Jason Explanation

There was a time when the Yuletide telly appearance of David Jason was as regular an occurrence as the untouched box of Newberry fruits and the DFS Boxing Day sale. Mind you he’s back on BBC1 this Christmas in The Royal Bodyguard.

Rightly loved an applauded for his performances as Del Boy, Frost and Pop Larkin et al, Jason’s radio hinterland is often overlooked. His  versatility in ‘doing voices’ was first put to good use in Radio 4’s weekly satirical sketch show Week Ending (1970-1998). David was a regular on the show between 1979 and 1982 alongside Sheila Steafel, David Tate and Bill Wallis. I plan to post about Week Ending in 2012.

Doing straight impressions David was a semi-regular on Radio 2’s The Impressionists and you can hear an edition of that programme here. 

From 1977 to 1981 David also had his own Radio 4 series The Jason Explanation of… , with a different theme explored in sketches and song in each programme. This is the 1981 Christmas offering The Jason Explanation of the Festive Season as broadcast on 25 December.

The programme has an incredible comedy pedigree. Alongside Jason at the mic is Sheila Steafel and Jon Glover (also on Week Ending and provider of voices on Spitting Image). Writers include Any Hamilton and Guy Jenkin (TV’s Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered), John Langdon (a regular writer for Rory Bremner), Peter Hickey (creator of Trivia Test Match), Jon Canter (later Lenny Henry’s regular collaborator), Tony Sarchet (Delve Special on the radio and This is David Lander on Channel 4) and Geoffrey Perkins (Radio Active and BBC Head of Comedy).  The producer is Jimmy Mulville (Who Dares Wins and co-founder of Hat Trick Productions).

You can also hear David Jason on the radio this Christmas Day presenting classic comedy clips on BBC Radio 2 at 6 p.m.